Tuesday, 26 March 2013

The Fellblade Project: Part Five (Up-armouring)

Former Majos Farrox adjusted the driver's panel from inside the Fellblade. He still hadn't fully adjusted to the warband's customs, and the scars from his encounter with his 'master' Khotep were still fresh. The damage done to his metal face had been crudely welded shut by Khotep himself, his master deeming it unfit to repair this whelp with any skill or care, as what he shows for other war-machines and dark tech savants. It was a painful insult to the artful Magos, and a reminder of the insult he himself caused. Perhaps once day he could indulge his vanity and rebuild his face to match its former chromium shining glory, but under the service of these renegades, it was unlikely.Something inside spoke to him as he worked, uttering dark words. It has been uttering dark phrases for at least two hours. It was odd, the daemon always used a different voice, speaking once every nine minutes, for nine seconds. Blurting the same section of chaotic scrap code; that whihc the Magos could not decipher. This time however, it spoke in a tongue he understood:"You will be mine, Farrox! I taste your blood. I need your technology, your metal bones, your copper brain. I need your soul!"Farrox jumped in shock, sitting in the decayed remains of the driver's chair, gripping the torn leather tightly. He experienced an emotion blocked by centuries of data-coding and indoctrination; fear.

Some progress to report. I've finally started the turret! The biggest and most complicated part of this build is under way. The hull is also pretty much covered.

The final piece to the basic hull was the top plate. This is all one piece of plastic. I did cut it a bit short, but rather than start again, I'll be filling the gap later on. Once this is done, I can get to work with the detailing.
The front has also been tidied up. The bolts and the half-defiled imperial insignia have been removed fully, and the gap between the bumper and glasis plate has been neatened up with a piece of L-shaped plasticard rod.

The basic skeleton of the turret is a few layers of foam sheeting, cut into ever decreasing circle sizes and glued on top of one another with PVA. Whilst this is by no means a strong adhesive on its own, it is more than enough for my purposes.

The outer layer is Miliput. This stuff is ideal for this purpose. It is tough, relatively easy to work with, cheap, and most importantly, sand-able. I was never going to get a perfectly round turret with sculpting skill alone, so I needed something that could withstand a good sand-down, which will properly begin once the entire turret is covered.

It also helps if it can hold up to this, my new toy. I'm surprised I've got this far without one. It's so far helped shape the turret, and remove a ton of imperial insignia from some metal Space Marine models I'm planning to convert later on.

Once the turret shape is completed in basic form, I'll sand the thing, and get started on the biggest of guns: the twin-bareled Accelerator Cannon.